You friended me on Origin and texted me complaining about the banning. I wrote you back and asked you to post your complaint/unban request in our forums, which you did not. Instead, you decided to make a post in Reddit. I was asked by one of our admins, netrgr, if I would remove the ban, and for that, and only that reason I will remove the ban for now. If you had posted in our forums, you would have had all of our BF1 players take a look and make a decision. I will say that using Reddit in the future to get unbanned will not work.

The-Armory.net was founded by myself back in 2002. It was created to provide a safe and friendly environment for all to enjoy. We strictly enforce and prohibit players who use racial slurs (instant ban), and we do not allow political chat (verbal warning, first, a kick if continues, and ban if needed), or religious chat for that matter.

We also have a policy in which we remove players who disrupt or distract others from enjoying the game. Lastly, we try our best to visually detect cheaters, because we have no other means or methods to stop them. Fairfight is inadequate, as we all know, so we try our best at keeping the game fair.

We certainly are not experts at cheat detection, nor is anyone else for that matter, so we must rely on visual observation via “Spectating.” Yes, we make mistakes, but we are only human. So instead of banning everyone for suspected cheating, we simply kick them from the server and hope their gameplay changes to a more analog gameplay style than digital one ...if you know what I mean.

Unfortunately, some players return and start with nasty/mouthy disruptive chat, which interferes with the state of gameplay in the server, which eventually gets them banned. These players to me are worse than cheaters and hackers and must be dealt with immediately to maintain a friendly and fun place to play.

Sometimes there are players (very few, mind you) who demonstrate spectacular skills and might appear to be hacking or cheating, but are not. We might also receive multiple complaints of cheating and hacking from players in chat, so our admins stop their fun and enjoyment and begin to spectate the suspected player. If we see the player is just good or above average, we take no action. However, if we observe what we believe to be a player using an ESP (wall hack), we will certainly take action.

So, this leads us to the question …what do you do when you receive so many complaints about a player whom everyone in your server believes is hacking/cheating? Do you lose your player base (many players), or do you remove the one or two from the server who is/are demonstrating abnormal/exceptional gameplay? Think about it.

First of all, thank you for lifting my ban. It's unfortunate that my first experience with the server was a negative one, but I'm willing to give it a second chance.

I wrote you back and asked you to post your complaint/unban request in our forums, which you did not.

Well this is interesting. I'm not sure if this is an issue with origin or i'm just unaware of how to use it, but I did not see your response. I checked several times throughout the day, and eventually just made a post on reddit warning others of the issues and contacted u/NetRngr through reddit, as I thought it would be a better way to have my concerns communicated to you.

If you had posted in our forums, you would have had all of our BF1 players take a look and make a decision.

Had I seen your reply, I would have posted there. As for the reddit post, I just wanted to let the community know what my experience was with the server, and that there was some issues with banning. I didn't come here looking to have my ban lifted.

As for the mistakes in regards to banning players, I understand and appreciate your guys' concern. Fairfight is a joke, and cheaters can go on for months without a ban. It's why I enjoy playing on community servers, where we don't have to rely on a nonfunctional anti-cheat (if you can even call it an anti-cheat) to remove cheaters from the game. That said, I don't think it's too difficult to differentiate cheaters from good players, and I think most of you can do that pretty reliably. I'm aware you guys lifted boccarossa's ban after reviewing the gameplay, which is great. But it raises the question: why was he banned when he clearly wasn't cheating? The spectator was seeing the same thing we saw in boccarossa's pov, so clearly he should have noticed he wasn't cheating. Yet he was banned anyway.

Again, I appreciate your guys' efforts to remove cheaters from your server, but I think there is at least one admin in particular who is having trouble differentiating cheaters from good players, who I mentioned in the forum thread. I'm not going to tell you how to run your platoon, but I think many would appreciate it if his administrative actions were a result of a collaborative effort in identifying cheaters rather than allowing him to be solely responsible for banning/kicking players. I'm sure if he had a second opinion on whether I, boccarossa, or pirate were hacking, none of this would have happened. I would even argue that revoking his administrative powers might be a reasonable option in this case, as I'm sure the 3 of us weren't the only ones who were unfairly banned.

Thank you again for lifting my ban. Your server has much potential to be a great non-toxic server, and a popular one at that. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

This is NetRngr , The TAC member and CTE general pain in the ass to DICE / EA , That Shimmy PMed about this. I want to just let you guys know that I have forwarded Shimmy's DM and my response to our Clan Leader and would also like to reiterate WeaponMaster's comments below that we as a clan are not ok with players having a negative experience on our server.

One of the reasons I hound DICE/EA so voraciously about the RSP program is to actually prevent things like this from happening. We strive to provide a sandbox where players are shielded from toxic players and cheaters. While we, at times, may be a bit overzealous in the policing of our servers please do know that it is done to prevent the less savory aspects of the game from reaching you, the end users.

That said we do not take the responsibility lightly and if you feel you have been unfairly banned please by all means register on our forums and lodge an appeal so we can review the ban and come to a resolution. Unfortunately we do not have even a fraction of the tools we once had to monitor our servers and provide a non-toxic / non-abusive environment as we did with our BF4 servers.

To address a couple of things in the OP. It is pretty difficult to arbitrate disputes in game. Previously we had the ability to tell you in game / via messages how to appeal a ban and give the reason for it. We also had the ability to time limit bans because not everything requires a full out ban. Likewise we do not have access to chat logs etc as we once did.

For some unknown reason the powers that be do not feel or do not see the value in providing us these tools that were removed when they went away from third party hosts and community developed plugins. Its a learning curve for everyone at this time and our options are limited. I will say that if there is even a inkling of inappropriate play on our servers we will tend to ban and sort it out later simply because we do not want to risk the chance our players are being taken advantage of. That said we also want to uphold a high standard on our end as well and if you would like to appeal a ban PLEASE register and do so. We provide this server for our enjoyment but for yours as well and want everyone to enjoy themselves.

I joined this clan based off the experience I had playing on their servers in BF4 and have yet to regret the choice. These are all some really nice guys and as older gamers can be a bit on the strict side but we do so to provide a pleasurable environment for all.

Thanks for the heads up Shimmy. I will be passing this along to the upper command.

Well obviously bigger squads have that inherent advantage of being wiped less often, but I don't think field upgrades really change anything for the worse, because everyone has them. All squads have equal opportunity to earn these specializations, so I don't think the gap is increased between small squads and big squads.

But it is a shame that we still have to deal with this squad size/player count mismatch. I thought for sure after BF4 DICE was going to learn how to count and bump up the player count to accommodate 5 man squads, or return to 4 man. It's hilariously bad on rush, it just baffles me that nothing has changed yet.

I hear you, and understand the intention, but ingame I see so much disorder in squad sizing and function I think the benefit would only be a benefit for good coordinated players. I don't believe we should implement an artifical skill gap, even if said mechanics only create a lacking void, instead of a tangible negative.

I guess I just don't see the concept of coordinated squads being rewarded more than uncoordinated ones as a negative thing. In my opinion battlefield should be a team game, and if you choose to ignore your squad and ignore the objective, then why shouldn't you be at a disadvantage to a squad that is working together?

That said, I think this whole "teamplay or bust" mentality that I hold is only held by a minority of the community. And the more I think about it, the more I fear getting stuck in a terribly uncoordinated squad with an empty field upgrade bar. But I guess I really can't expect much from the average player in terms of teamplay/squadplay. I think that maybe you are right (possibly for a slightly different reason), and the best environment for field upgrades would be in the upcoming competitive mode, or whatever it is. Especially with all the issues we have with team balance, squad size, etc. It might just be unfair to punish all of our casual players with a field upgrades system, and even punish good players who have no choice but to be a part of an uncoordinated squad. It's just sad that we have to resort to a such a small scale mode to expect a true team based experience. And it's very telling of the current state of the franchise that we have to worry about breaking the game's balance and punishing half the playerbase just by rewarding squad play.

But something tells me that DICE will not take the time to implement any sort of game mechanic specific to competitive mode, considering how much they overhyped specializations as this "never before seen" way to tune your class to your playstyle, when in reality it's just a half-baked, basic version of the same system we had in all battlefield games since 2142. And considering how little content in terms of gameplay changes we've received in 10 months. I just can't help but think we aren't going to get anything more than an irrelevant 5v5 mode that doesn't have a ladder or even a functioning skill based matchmaker/balancer.

These are all great points. I've seen killing machine still featured, but it usually only shows if you're MVP or close and the game can't find anything else to compliment you on. Squad highlight definitely needs some added features, perhaps a list of the top three squads and their accumulative points? And emblems if it's a platoon named squad.

I play an obscene amount of war pigeon and usually get double or triple the amount of kills as the next person... but with a bad overall KD. It's popped up less than 10 times for me. In a game mode like that if you play assault, there's not much else the game has to reward you with if you just kill people and don't manage to grab the bird.

I'm more bothered by the "5 kills with K-bullets against scouts", and "10 kills with AT grenades". Why does DICE want to encourage people to waste their gadgets? They should be encouraging people to disable tracks/wings with K-bullets or disable tracks and weapons with the AT nade, or just do a certain amount of damage to vehicles. People are just going to add to the grenade spam and throw their AT nades at infantry, because you can't reliably get the last hit on a tank with AT grenades. It's just about luck or waiting for someone else to disable a tank, and stealing their kill.

As much as I would like to see the flash flare used more, I don't know if this is the right way to go about it. The flare spam can already get really bad on the smaller capture points and on maps like de Vaux. I can't imagine it would be fun to be on fire AND blinded every time a few scouts happen to be contesting a flag.

Oh hey! I'm from the 2nd Marine Division and I was there when this happened!

... Awkward.

The verbal sparring you were having with GT and Hanley was kind of confusing. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention but the typing you were doing probably wasn't exactly helping you turn it around. Salt in general isn't that helpful. That said, acting like a jerk to people with too much salt probably isn't exactly solving world hunger either.

Sorry about that.

Oh, and Hanley got seriously pissed at whatever you said at one point and then he spent like 5 minutes typing stuff at you in silence. Again, wasn't paying that much attention- I think he was just trying to get you to stop complaining about team imbalance? I don't know. But you did basically put him out of the fight that round! (We still won...)

The reactions of everyone on teamspeak were generally just annoyed by the salt factories on the other team- and then Hanley, who was just shitting bricks at whatever you said in this silent typing-fury. GG no re.

To be fair and serious, that kind of steamroll isn't exactly fun for the losing team (I would know, I've been stuck on the losing team after joining everyone else late into a session), but I'm not sure there's really anything to be done about it.

Moving all the good players to the team opposite a platoon/coordinated party would ideally result in a more balanced match but would more likely result in those players just quitting if its was known that this was a thing that happened. People in BF1 seem to really like their stat-padding and easy wins.

A matchmaker isn't really going to work because stuff like Rush doesn't have the population to be able to split people up like that. Not to mention how DICE is already struggling to even get people into servers in the first place with current quickmatch.

Really the best thing I could think of would be to impose some kind of dynamic handicap on the dominant team, but I have no idea how to do that without borking regular gameplay. Plus it's effectively punishment for being too good/for the enemy team being terrible, which in itself makes it seem like a bad idea.

My best advice is to try and acquire your own mates to play with. Maybe try to join a platoon yourself. It certainly worked for me.

The verbal sparring you were having with GT and Hanley was kind of confusing.

Sure was. A strange combination of boasting, sarcastic compliments, and legitimate arguments made for a very, like you said, confusing chat.

the typing you were doing probably wasn't exactly helping you turn it around.

It wasn't, but nothing was. Those 10+ rounds proved that.

Sorry about that.

As am I. Safe to say we all got a little carried away.

Hanley got seriously pissed at whatever you said at one point and then he spent like 5 minutes typing stuff at you in silence.

I believe I mistook one of his legitimate responses as "playing dumb", which I think triggered him. Then we kind of both agreed to debate about the issue of balance for the next several rounds, since we obviously disagreed on things, and the outcome of the round was not going to differ.

that kind of steamroll isn't exactly fun for the losing team

I would argue it's not fun for the winning team, either. Though that's coming from a person who enjoys a challenge, and I think that's where me and the 2nd Marine Division differ.

Moving all the good players to the team opposite a platoon/coordinated party would ideally result in a more balanced match but would more likely result in those players just quitting if its was known that this was a thing that happened.

You're right. I suppose it would be important to achieve balance very early on, which is really only possible with matchmaking.

People in BF1 seem to really like their stat-padding and easy wins.

I'm not so sure if you should really be complaining about people wanting easy wins...

stuff like Rush doesn't have the population to be able to split people up like that.

True. Such a shame though. Rush held a descent population in both 3 and 4. Operations really killed rush.

Really the best thing I could think of would be to impose some kind of dynamic handicap on the dominant team, but I have no idea how to do that without borking regular gameplay.

Yeah, not really sure that's feasible without borking gameplay. Maybe elite kits? Sort of like how the TSNP behemoths work. Could be given to defenders if less than a certain amount of tickets are lost by the middle sector, or if too little time has passed by the middle sector. Not sure when it could be given to attackers. Maybe if they have not destroyed an mcom on a sector after over half the tickets have been lost? But that would just throw off the flow of rush, wouldn't it? I think our best bet might be a more effective skill based balancer that is able to recognize steamrolls. Even if it causes people to quit, it's still better than the seemingly nonexistent balancer that we have now.

You might wanna avoid the 2nd though.

No offense but I think this was communicated to everybody in those rounds, both in chat and in the form of a never ending steamroll.

I dunno, I'm not sure I would call doing what we do easy. It's not like grouping up suddenly reduces the competence of the enemy team. Even if we're better, we still need to put the effort in to actually win the game. (Unless we're talking about GT or Ottawa, who are respectively a drunken tank wizard and a flanker-tank maining salt factory).

It is still a challenge to do as well as we do, especially when the enemy team doesn't ragequit and doesn't try to hillhump with a 10x scope (speaking of which, we once tried to PTFO using nothing but scouts with 10x scopes... I think someone almost got sick.) If their power-players (tanks, elites, artillery calls) play their cards right, we can lose.

Or if I get matched onto the other team and squadwipe my own platoon repeatedly with a mounted Vickers gun, and then get moved over to their team right as we lose... that works too.

I think the most difficult thing you guys had to do last night was push into the castle on EE, and that is simply because that sector is designed to be nearly impossible for attackers to take, with the lockable doors and flametrooper. It didn't really have to do with the balance. But everything else you guys were doing didn't require much effort. You guys had way more guys ptfo-ing and trust me, our team was not good by any stretch of the word. We rarely had a full team. We were down 6 players at times, and nobody switched. If plowing through our team wasn't easy I don't know what is.

I think you guys are really effective players that know how to get things done, but I don't think anyone in their right mind can call what happened last night a challenge.

Here is a video of an animation bug that has been present since launch. Not sure if it's been reported to the tracker, but I thought I'd post it here anyway. Seems to have to do with throwing grenades.

The horse gets stuck on every little object on this map. Logs, rocks, and downed trees are the biggest offenders. I have died so many times because my horse gets stopped by a small object, and I can't reliably turn around. I know it's being worked on, but these issues have been present in vanilla since launch (9 months ago) with small objects across the vanilla maps, mainly wooden fences. I just hope the improvements that you guys are working on make it to the game before this dlc releases. Because in the current state, horses just don't seem very useful, and most cavalry end up off their horses because of it.

A similar problem exists on console where, theoretically, everyone should the same hardware and maybe a few people have upgraded their disc. Yet, people don't seem to spawn in at the same time at the start of round and I routinely don't have my loadout, sometimes not until the first flag is captured. Maybe it is just my console, but maybe there is something going on with start of round loading.

This has been a issue since the Beta. Just having a faster HDD makes some noticeable differences but not by much. The game doesn't really start the matches until there's a certain amount of players fully loaded into the match. So anyone who hasn't loaded in yet are more than likely out of luck.

I never really understood the elite kit hate. They are functionally the same as vehicles, an uncommon yet powerful tool that can go ham if the enemy team doesn't play very well. The elite kits are seldom the unstoppable force that this community makes them out to be. They are actually far less difficult to take out than tanks/planes. I can understand why people dislike them in modes like dom/tdm, but even then, they are not very difficult to counter. All it takes is one single rocket from a rocket gun or one bayonet charge.

Also each kit typically has a "weakness". Gas kills sentry in seconds, flametrooper is helpless against targets more than ~15m (+low dps=bayonet charge fodder), tank hunter has low armor and can not deal with more than a couple enemies at a time, and trench raider obviously needs to be in melee range to be effective.

On a side note I find it interesting how many people still call the elite classes "sentries". The sentry is one of the elite classes. Sentry, Flame Trooper, Tank Hunter, and Trench Raider make up the Elite Classes/Kits, not the "sentries".

I agree. Most people seem to claim that it won't feel "competitive" if you have more than 5v5, which I strongly disagree with. I think that you could easily have a "competitive" experience with a large player count if there were better ways to communicate with your team. Inter-squad leader voice chat and a mission log with a wide variety of functions would allow for squads to coordinate better, and prevent the feeling of disorder and randomness that you can get from the base game.

I think Battlefield has a lot of potential to be a very unique competitive game, offering a large scale competitive experience with a focus on squad coordination and teamwork. I'd hate to see battlefield competitive be a CS:GO clone. It wouldn't get anywhere.

I think most people often overlook the class-based upgrade trees and only consider the single most notorious perk (armor) of the single most notorious tree when expressing/developing their opinion on field-upgrades.

I personally would love to see field upgrades implemented into BF1. They made playing with a good squad so satisfying. Though I would like to see only the class focused trees return like combat medic, anti-tank, mechanic, indirect fire, etc. These trees were great because they didn't throw off the balance, or give you the upper hand in combat, they simply allowed players to support their teams and do their jobs more efficiently.

I really like this idea, but I could see why people would have problems with it. The way I see it, DICE could do one of two things:

Include a "carbine" version of a few bolt actions that all classes could use. They would be less accurate than their full length rifle variants, have more drop, and a shorter damage drop off to ensure that they don't compete with the scout.

Include a server option that allows all classes to use bolt actions, or even force all classes to. This could be done with either the carbine variant or the full length bolt action rifles (no scopes for non-scout classes of course).

I think it could be very enjoyable especially on trench oriented maps and modes, and would certainly feel more authentic.

almost thought I'm alone with this view. Realizing more and more that you can't discuss any balancing here. CTE forums were so great, CTE reddit was still ok, this reddit is a waste of time.

I hope there will be a lot of loud feedback when many good pilots can play the beta. I tried to raise this problem as soon as possible to get it balanced for the launch, but here are too many idiots and there was no dev feedback in the alpha forums. Getting more and more the feeling that DICE just doesn't care about air gameplay as long as the infantry players don't cry that hard about it. Call of Battlefield incoming.

It's because there are so few battlefield players who dedicate more than a few minutes to flying jets. I want so much for DICE to redesign the air game, and give us something that actually works in a challenging yet rewarding way, with no fundamental issues. But the reality is that their playerbase is just not interested enough in jets/planes. It allows DICE to just copy and paste the jets/planes with a few tweaks, and not get very much backlash for it, since only a fraction of the community cares.

I thought maybe BF1 would be different, based on the progress we made in CTE, and hearing the dev's thoughts on balance. But it's not looking too good at the moment. I fear that airplanes will serve the same purpose as they always have (since BF3). Eye candy for the trailers and "Only in Battlefield can you fight across land, air and sea!" Of course that's an exaggeration, but each installment in the franchise is making it more difficult to call it that.

I'm sure things will get better though once CTE gets kicked off, and we'll have a more direct way of communicating with the devs. It's just disappointing that we'll have to spend time fixing something that should have already been dealt with.

Another thing about the gas - It doesn't seem to pass through walls as you said. If you look closely you can see it is coming out from under the door and/or through the window realistically. I've noticed it in other videos as well. I'll post a link if I can find them.

Check your nmm downloads folder, there should be an unextracted mod file in there. Take that and drag it into your MO downloads folder. It should appear in your MO downloads after restarting the program. From their you can install it like any other mod.

Typically, a round in a Battlefield game is completely contained to that one match. You play, you win or lose, and then you move on to the next round. That all changes in Operations, a new game mode coming to Battlefield 1. In it, the outcome of the current round carries over to the next map, giving you the opportunity to fight a sequence of inter-connected battles.

Operations offer epic journeys across several maps based upon real battles of World War I. We wanted to offer a large and epic experience with a focus on teamplay and frontline combat. Adding this meta-layer to the game mode, and stretching it across multiple interesting locations that both look and play very differently, adds a whole new layer of scale and variety to the battles in Battlefield 1. Your team can win on one map, proceed to the next map, and actually see the map you previously fought over on the horizon.

As an attacker you’ll hear the commanding officer’s whistle as the order to charge the enemy trench is given. You’ll run side-by-side with your teammates as you storm towards the enemy defensive positions on foot, in tanks, airplanes, boats, and on horseback. As a defender, you’ll dig down as you hear the alarm go off signaling an incoming attack. You’ll man the stationary machine-guns and cannons to aid you as you rain hell on the advancing enemy attackers.

The attackers must capture and hold all defensive positions in order to capture the sector that is being fought over. Once this is done, the defenders will fall back to the next sector and regroup. The pacing and variety between the different sectors vary widely, since each sector offers a different amount of objectives to capture and defend as well as varied layouts and choke points.

The attackers must take territory and push the frontline forward, while the defenders are trying to hold the line. Should the defenders fail to hold their ground on a map, the Operation doesn’t stop here: they will fall back and regroup on a different map, while the attackers will continue to push. Sectors may fall, but players reinforced by gigantic Behemoths can still turn the tide.

We wanted to create a Battlefield experience that was not just bite-sized, but actually spanned beyond an hour of playtime. Something epic and compelling for players who wanted a chance to immerse themselves in this first global war, and capture the stories of how different battles were deeply connected to one another. This kind of frontline combat really captures the essence of WWI clashes, intimate and deeply rooted in breaking through or holding ground.

It's definitely going to be my most played mode if it's done properly. I always have felt that a gamemode like this is what Battlefield has been missing all these years. Rush is great, but it just hasn't been DICEs focus in the past few games.

Lots of people have this problem, including me, but there is also a large group of people on this subreddit who think having non-scoped bolt actions for all class would somehow make the game boring, which makes no sense to me. Automatics and semi automatics will still be an option, so if you still want to play run-and-gun, you can. And it seems like that group of people is larger than the group holding your opinion (and mine), considering the front page has been filled with "shut up about bolt action weapons and go play a different game!", basically.

I personally see no problem with bolt actions for all classes. It will not only give players a better option for shooting across "no mans land", but also satisfy the portion of the battlefield community who were hoping for a more unique gameplay experience. And I actually think they will be a viable choice, considering the current, highly inaccurate state of the weapons we've seen so far. Which I think is fine.

So every hero in the game gets universally effective abilities except Boba Fett? What kind of logic is that? All of the hero's abilities should be viable in most, if not all, situations. Limiting one of boba's entire slots to "for when Luke is attacking you and you are all out of jet pack fuel" is silly and waaay to situational, especially because in most game modes you probably won't even have a Luke vs boba encounter.

I've already added that line to the game files, and it certainly did make it more tolerable. I may have to try that mod though. I've been holding off on mods until Mod Organizer gets released, but I might just go ahead and get this mod. Thanks!

BEthesda is unlikely do do much work in this area as they fundamentally don't really see this as a hardcore shooter game. If they did, they wouldn't have the exploding shotgun and fatman as weapons in the game.

I feel that many people don't use this option in BF4 because they don't understand what it is, or that it even exists, because it was added sort of late in BF4's life, and not everyone browses the forums. And if people took the time to get used to it, they would realize it is superior, simply because it allows you to be more accurate when switching back and fourth between zoom levels. It throws people off at first because they played the game so long with awkward scope sensitivities that they became used to it. Just the same as if you played with uniform aiming for a long time and switched to non-uniform aiming.

Also, I don't think it would effect the game's image by any means. It's not a matter of casual vs. hardcore. Uniform aiming sensitivity just means using scopes/sights feels less clunky.